


Prompt: Guilt and Nightmares

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [76]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Codependency, Gen, Hurt Pietro Maximoff, Hurt Wanda Maximoff, Mutual Comfort/Reassurance, Pietro Maximoff Lives, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 18:26:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6918226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have always trusted one another first, and with Wanda sleeping tucked against him in her rooms in Wakanda, he can almost think things normal.</p><p>Then he remembers Wanda choosing to walk in pain rather than accept his help, and fears she does not trust him any more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prompt: Guilt and Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wandasmaximoffs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wandasmaximoffs/gifts).



> Written for a prompt on my tumblr, readable [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/144687957815/cries-and-prompts-wanda-pietro-post-cw-as-per). Baseline is an AU in which Pietro was alive for the events of CACW.

**i.**  
Pietro does not want to leave Wanda - not that he ever does - but being ordered by her to leave her in the midst of battle… it sets something tearing in his chest, to leave his sister in such danger.

Wanda had ordered it. Wanda never asks of him more than he can give. Wanda always knows what is best.

Pietro sprints alongside the Captain, alongside the Winter Soldier, past where the Widow lies in wait and starts preparing the Quinjet for take-off.

He can feel something in his heart hurting to abandon Wanda, even at her order, but he does not dare to disobey.

 

* * *

 

**ii.**  
Wanda closes her eyes when they are taken in by Ross’ men. Tucks her scarlet close to her, apart from one strand stretching out and out and out all the way to Pietro and back again, allowing him to find her, to let them both know if something should happen to either of them. 

She is glad she has the presence of mind to do this before they get to the Raft, and her arms are tied back so tightly she can barely move. The thread is there, drawn taut so much it feels like a badly combed out knot of hair about to break, but Wanda feeds strength and length into it, the scarlet that spreads between her mind and her brother’s. 

 _Be well,_  she sends to Pietro. _Be strong_.

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
Pietro can fly the Quinjet, just about, and refuses to let the Captain or the Soldier fly it in his stead. He needs something to focus on as they leave his sister behind, needs something to focus on rather than whatever may be happening to Wanda now.

It doesn’t matter that she had ordered it, agreed to it, it hurts to leave her behind like this. 

So he flies. So he focusses. _This is what you asked of me_ , he thinks to where the red thread to Wanda’s mind touches his. _I will do as you asked of me, to the best of my ability, and then I will come for you. I promise._

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
There are few things which set Pietro to being hyperaware of everything. One is the idea of Wanda being at risk, and the second is the presence of Stark.

Wanda, right now, is far from him, enduring whatever sanctions Ross’ men and Ross’ Accords deem right and necessary. Stark is _right here_ , and for all he claims truce Pietro cannot help but think him a threat.

As they make their way through the abandoned HYDRA base Pietro remains painfully aware of every movement, every sound. 

He hears the breathing of Zemo before Zemo announces his presence, hears the dull drone of the heart monitors before they reach the room, senses Stark’s betrayal before it happens.

(He, more than anyone in the room, knows what losing one’s parents does to common sense.)

There is chaos, chaos, and he tries to find the way to Zemo and cannot - a Sokovian, a fellow citizen and maybe talking to him might have helped them each find sense in all of this but failure is failure. 

So he returns. So he finds Stark and the Soldier and the Captain, sees the Soldier’s arm blasted off and stands, half in shock, as the Captain comes within moments of killing Anthony Stark.

(How long have they wished for this, he and Wanda, for Stark to be dead? Wanda, he knows, could count how long down to the very day, but she is not here. She is not with him, it is not _them_ , he and Wanda, taking vengeance. Pietro does not know how to feel as he watches the Captain come so close to killing Anthony Stark.)

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
“I can offer you shelter,” T’Challa says, Zemo held by his collar. “I can bring in Zemo, I can take you to Wakanda.”

“The others,” The Captain says, supporting Bucky, and Pietro can hear them both fading to slow and pain in the cold. T’Challa blinks, pauses.

“My _sister_ ,” Pietro says, and T’Challa’s gaze becomes certain.

“I can get you to the Raft,” he says. “I can help you get them out. I will take you to Wakanda, take Zemo in and then we can go to the Raft, make a visit.”

 _Get my sister out_ , Pietro thinks. He cannot imagine how prison is for Wanda, only guess, only think of their nightmares of being trapped, think of how Wanda’s scarlet had lashed out in instinctive violent waves when HYDRA had tried to hold her back and restrain her. (Think of how they had been trapped in rubble, trapped and alone but for each other, and now Wanda was enduring entrapment all alone.)

 _We are coming, Wanda_ , he thinks to the red thread in his mind. _We are coming_.

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
There is much they could expect from the Raft, but even Pietro could not have expected this. He is at Wanda’s cell in a moment, almost vibrating with worry and anxiety. 

“Wanda,” he murmurs, brushing her hair back so lightly it could be a breeze. Wanda’s eyes are fixed on his face and he cannot let the guilt he feels show. “Wanda, we are going to get you out.”

His hands are fumbling with the collar at her neck when Clint’s hand falls on his shoulder, as he says, “Kid.”

Pietro shrugs Clint’s hand off, focusses on the ties that restrain his sister’s arms.

“Pietro, you should-”

Something cuts him off, and when Pietro looks to Wanda’s face he sees her eyes watching over his shoulder, boring into the space where likely Clint stands.

“Wanda,” Pietro breathes, his free hand cupping her cheek as lightly as he dares as his other hand slips the black restraints off her. _Sokovian_ , he thinks. _She will respond better to Sokovian._  “Wanda, it’s going to be all right.” He presses a kiss to her brow, tucks her hair back behind her ears, watches her face until she jerks her chin downwards in a nod.

She is shaking as he wraps her in her coat, in the shawl that had been stashed on the Quinjet for long flights, but she gradually stills as he tucks her under his arm, under his chin, and leads her out to the landing pad. Her limbs are stiff, and he can see how every step pains her.

“I could carry you,” he offers but Wanda shakes her head. 

 _Stiff_ , she thinks at him. _Need to stretch._

Pietro nods, even as guilt roils through him. All he can think of is a promise. “We are going to be safe,” he whispers into her hair, and feels the thread between their minds start to strengthen. 

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
They have always trusted one another first, and with Wanda sleeping tucked against him in her rooms in Wakanda, he can almost think things normal.

Then he remembers Wanda choosing to walk in pain rather than accept his help, and fears she does not trust him any more. _You are safe now_ , he thinks, aimed at the thread still tying their minds together. _And when you are well enough to link our minds again fully you will know I am loyal as ever_.

He sighs, rises, tucks Wanda into blankets and a burrow of quilts, hides her in them as though they are a fort, warm and reassuring, a burrow that will not set off the claustrophobia they share, only ensure she is warm and safe and secure. Wanda’s brow is creased, the bags beneath her eyes dark, her shoulders hunched in. Pietro sighs, and walks out to the balcony.

He has always been loyal to Wanda. Has made himself so, out of choice and sacrifice, since they were ten years old, since they ceased to be simply Wanda and Pietro, the Maximoff twins, and became Wanda-and-Pietro, became solely and solidly a _them_ , without parents to encourage a distinction, with a need to stay close and protect each other, further blurring their boundaries between one and another, further making them halves of a whole.

(He has always tried to protect Wanda, even before then, but after the bomb, with no parents to turn to he had become the only shield between Wanda and the world. Pietro refuses to ever break and see Wanda harmed.)

Others think it wrong, he knows that. Others do not understand the root of it, the system of it, of why they choose, over and over, to trust each other before anyone else, why he obeys Wanda without any visible second thought, why - even when he objects - he almost always bows to Wanda’s will all the same.

 _She guides_ , he thinks. _I guard. That is how we are_. Halves of a whole, that they have had to be since they were ten, but now…

It was Wanda’s order yes. Wanda always knows best, yes, that he knows with absolute certainty, the certainty he has trusted in since he was ten. He can protect Wanda, but he cannot plan for them. Wanda plans. He protects. He guards, she guides. That is how they _work_.

Wanda’s order. Wanda’s choice. Wanda always knows best.

 _But Wanda is hurting_ , he thinks. _And there is nothing I can do to help_.

He glances back, from trees and star-studded sky to the room where Wanda is curled small beneath blankets and quilts.

_I shouldn’t have left her behind._

 

* * *

 

 **viii.**  
When Wanda wakes - screaming and startled or still and silent - from her nightmares, Pietro sprints back in a nanosecond, clambers onto the bed beside her, strokes her hair back, tucks her against him in the way that has soothed her for as long as they both can remember. 

“I am here,” he promises, English words tripping over Sokovian, over Serbian and German, over Hebrew and Polish and Hungarian and the fragments of other languages they’d learned. “I am here,” he promises, pressing firm kisses to her hair, stroking a hand gently over shaking shoulders. “You’re safe. No one is going to hurt you. I will not let anyone hurt you again.”

There is something reassuring in how Wanda clings to him as she sobs herself free of nightmares. _Maybe_ , he thinks, _she trusts me still_.

 

* * *

 

 **ix.**  
Wanda can feel the worry in her brother’s mind, knows if she were to strengthen the scarlet between their minds she would see his thoughts clearly, feel his anxiety as keenly as her own, understand what has her brother fretting so.

Any other time, she would do exactly that, let Pietro’s mind open before her like a flower, help him pick apart his fears until he was strong and certain once more.

Now, though… now she cannot, dares not. Her fingers are still stiff when she tries to direct her scarlet, no matter how many times she flexes them, clicks her joints and moves her fingers so her knuckles and tendons twist beneath her skin like a skein of stormwaves. Her mind has her own worries breaking her own certainty, fears occurring and reoccurring of the Raft. 

(She could handle a cell; she knew what was going to happen when she ordered Pietro to leave her, to help the Captain, knew what she was letting herself in for with the warning image that had flashed through Stark’s head of the prison. The restraints though, the collar, being treated like an _animal_ , spoonfed like a _child_ , risking tasing with each tiny movement she made…)

(That brings up a whole new set of nightmares and she is ill-equipped to handle them, and dares not add the guilt of their occurrence to Pietro’s already over-burdened mind.)

All the same, after each nightmare she cannot help but cling to him, to press her face to the join of his neck and shoulder, to trust in his presence as she always has. Sometimes after nightmares the thread between their minds pulses, almost begging her to throw it open into a full wide bridge, the bridge it is meant to be.

But she will not feed Pietro’s existing guilt. He has guarded her too long for her to willingly hurt him if she can help it.

 

* * *

 

 **x.**  
Pietro is always there for her when she wakes, though she is growing increasingly certain he spends time outside while she sleeps, brooding over their situation as Father used to at the window when money was tight. All the same, when she falls asleep it is tucked against his side, his arm around her shoulders, him still and steady as he only ever is for her, and when she wakes - on her own in the morning or from a nightmare in the midst of the night - he is there in the merest of moments, offering tea or water or most usually an embrace.

If she had the strength she would offer him comfort, try to soothe away the guilt he feels as he soothes away her each and every nightmare. If she had the strength she would tell him the words he needs to hear, that it is not his fault what happened, that she already knew her fate, that she did it to save him from the same, from being restrained in a cell that would have driven him mad.

But she doesn’t have the strength. That hurts more than the nightmares some days.

 

* * *

 

 **xi.**  
Pietro can feel Wanda’s worry for him, knows it even with the thread between their minds being only a thread and not a full and open bridge, and does all he can to soothe it. There is plenty for Wanda to worry about, for herself, for her own sake, or for the team if need be, but his issues are his own and he has always done what he can to treat them as such, his responsibility and not hers when she is already so burdened with planning for and guiding them.

Wanda would try to help him, he knows, if she knew it in full. Try to help even though now, as she is, it would hurt her to do so, even though to ask her to help him now, ask her for help as he never has, never does, never will, would be _wrong_.

Pietro tries not to let it eat at him, his fear and his guilt and his worry, but it will anyway, will until Wanda is well, and he knows that is the conundrum, because Wanda will not be well - not fully, not truly - until he is no longer worrying and he will not cease worrying until Wanda is well.

They are trapped in this cycle, trapped by the choices they have made to bind themselves to each other, and times like this are a large part of why Pietro hates seeing either of them hurt.

 

* * *

 

 **xii.**  
Pietro does not sleep often, when he is watching over Wanda. He does not need to sleep terribly much and it is easier to catch snatched handfuls of it in the small hours between Wanda’s nightmares and dawn, or to doze during the day while Wanda reads and tries to rest. He can survive on snatches of sleep for days or weeks, has done so for years before, but eventually comes a point when he must sleep solidly, must lay down his head to rest.

He supposes, after all of his worrying, he should have known he would have had a nightmare.

He wakes to Wanda’s hands on his cheeks, her worried eyes boring into his. He feels as though he is choking, not on rubble dust and the pressure of the bed slats on his chest or even on fear, but on _guilt_ , on leaving Wanda to be imprisoned, the tearing sensation in his chest as he had followed her orders and left Wanda behind.

Wanda’s mouth is half-open, almost as though she would speak, and Pietro has never been more aware of his sister’s silence as he is now. 

(Usually, after one of his rare nightmares, the first word out of her mouth is his name, said with anchoring force. The second word is his name again as her hand combs through his hair with grounding pain as her fingers tug firmly at the strands. The third word is the start of a promise, a reassurance, as Pietro holds her to him and gets his breathing under control, his hands stroking over her back and through her hair to reassure her as much as she does him.)

Wanda blinks, her mouth shuts. The back of her hands graze over his cheeks, her eyes drop to the blankets still wrapped around her. Everything in her expression, her posture is an apology, and Pietro is sat up in moments, trying to think how to soothe her from this.

He can still feel the guilt for leaving her behind, for leaving her to the Raft running through his mind, down his every nerve, worrying him to his core all over again, unsettled without Wanda’s help. He finds as much of it as he can in his mind, traps it in the well beneath the tree of his mindscape, hides it away so as to protect Wanda from the worst of it as he does all he can to reassure her that no apology is necessary.

 

* * *

 

 **xiii.**  
Wanda is still quiet in the morning, but the bond between their minds has been strengthened - embroidery thread made of smaller ones, rather than a single delicate strand. Pietro’s hand is gentle on her shoulder as he passes her tea, asks softly, “You will be better today?”

Wanda’s half smile as she takes the tea, her nod, are not nearly as reassuring as the soft sending of gold that flows from her end of the bridge to his.

 _I will mend_ , is her promise, and it is all Pietro can do not to collapse with relief.

 

* * *

 

 **xiv.**  
“What are they doing?” Pietro asks, curled gently around Wanda who in turn has tucked herself against him. Through the glass, in the room where Sergeant Barnes is kept on ice, techs are preparing something at a workbench.

Beside him Wanda frowns slightly. After a moment the image of Barnes’ metal arm appears in his mind. “I think,” Wanda says, and Pietro is too startled to hear her voice to notice at first how hoarse her voice sounds. He is gone and back in a moment, a glass of cool water in hand. Wanda takes it and drinks gratefully.

“A new arm,” Wanda whispers more smoothly, settling against him as he sits down again, the glass held carefully in her hands. “The original was…,” there is a pause, the distinct wait of Wanda interpreting the thoughts she can see in the shining orbs of the tech’s minds. “Vibranium I think. But also … titanium, steel, possibly others. An alloy, for strength but lightweight.”

“Will they take him out of ice for that?” For a while there is silence. “Wanda?”

“I don’t know,” she says softly. “They’re waiting for something first. They need to make sure he won’t break again.”

Pietro sighs, presses his face to Wanda’s hair. “We’re all broken already,” he murmurs, the Sokovian words soft and certain. “I do not think any of us can be certain we will not break again.”

Against him, Wanda shrugs, sends him an image of the fractured, HYDRA-tainted fragments of Barnes’ mind, a natural layout overlain with fragments of machinery, as precise as a computer.

“He is broken in a special way,” Wanda murmurs, and drinks deeply from the glass before continuing. “A way that could hurt us as well as him.”

 

* * *

 

 **xv.**  
A few days later they’re watching the techs again. There is something calming to Wanda about how they handle the metal. It is already forged into shape as they work, each disc and armoured outer layer, but their fingers set them into place with such precision it is like watching a dancer or an artist. 

Wanda does not notice how she has opened the bond between her mind and Pietro’s until memories, distinctly not her own, start appearing quietly in her mind in the same way they always have after she and Pietro have been too distant to update each other’s memories. She had almost forgotten this, the comfort of it, the warmth it gives, and she almost revels in it, the normality of it. It is _strengthening_  to feel, to settle into this once again.

The flow is gentle, each memory already matching up neatly to her own timeline, and Wanda sinks into it, sending a gentle careful flow of memories back to Pietro, updating his memories with hers, aligning their timelines again. Beside her she can feel some tension in Pietro finally relax and let go, something in his posture easing almost imperceptibly. Good for him, good for her, healing for both of them.

Their heads tilt together, Pietro’s resting gently against hers as they watch the techs making a new arm for the Soldier. It is easy for Wanda to do this, to watch the memories passing through her mind from Pietro’s, of flying the Quinjet through the rain, of the hushed discussions of the Soldier and the Captain behind him, of crunching through the snow to the abandoned base when they landed. 

There is something reassuring in it, in watching her brother’s memories, and she is utterly blindsided when she comes to the memory of Pietro hurtling to a halt to see the Soldier minus his metal arm, to see the Captain beating Tony Stark into hard concrete with the force and the fury to kill.

Much more confusing, however, are the emotions which accompany the memory.

Glee she could expect, and the odd hope-gladness of seeing one they have hated so long be brought low, but then, beside it… guilt. Uncertainty. Confusion.

Scarlet delves into the mix of it without Wanda even wondering long, picking apart and piecing together the puzzle of it. Guilt for leaving her behind. Guilt for not being the one to beat Stark into the ground. Guilt for not pulling the Captain off Stark before he did something he might regret. Confusion as to why he he feels guilty for doing nothing. Uncertainty over that confusion. The glee and the hope-gladness they’ve known to expect for this day since the first day in the rubble, and then layered over it so much else. 

(Guilt. Over and over it, guilt.)

 

* * *

 

 **xvi.**  
Pietro’s eyes are closed, his breath coming in carefully measured inhales and exhales when he feels Wanda’s hands cupping his cheeks. He almost breaks then, breaks from trying to hold it all in, the guilt and the fear and the uncertainty, but dares not fill Wanda’s mind with it, not now, not while she is healing.

“It’s all right,” she murmurs to him in Sokovian, resting her brow against his. Flooding from her mind to his is a great scarlet wave of reassurance, of certainty in her decision. “I don’t blame you, not for this, not for anything. I told you to leave.”

There are tears beading in Pietro’s eyes, as burning as every tear Wanda has shed with her nightmares since they took them from the Raft. 

“I decided,” she says. “I could see what would happen, I could prepare.” The pressure of her brow on his shifts as she shakes her head. “A cell would do you no good, brother, not with your gifts. It would hurt you more than me. I plan to protect you, because you protect me. It’s not your fault. Do not feel guilty for it, not for leaving me, not for the Raft, not for _anything_ , do you understand?”

There is a sob caught in Pietro’s throat, and it tears itself free with a great choking sound as he buries his face in Wanda’s shoulder. 

 _Our strength is in each other_ , Wanda sends into his mind, a great scarlet wave of it, the bold strength she can have even when she is exhausted, the strength he has relied on as often as she has relied on his. “I plan to protect you, because you protect me,” she murmurs. “We protect each other. I decided, for your sake, your safety. Do not feel guilty. It is not your fault.”

Pietro is sure his arms are squeezing her strong enough to hurt but Wanda’s arms only wrap around him tighter. 

“It’s all right,” she says, and it is a promise, as reassuring as the scarlet flooding into his mind as bright and strong as heartblood.

It’s all right. Wanda has said it is so. Wanda knows, in the end, what is best and true for both of them. Wanda does not blame him.

When they fall asleep that night, Wanda tucked against Pietro’s side lest she have another nightmare, Pietro does not wake, does not go to brood at the balcony.

Wanda has said it is all right. Wanda has explained her reasons, has removed all guilt from him. It gives him a certainty that, no matter what, now they will be well, and Pietro sleeps the whole night through, untroubled.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments if you enjoyed this!


End file.
